Oakland coal war: health impact debate heads to Sacramento

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The Oakland skyline is seen behind the area where Terminal Logistics Solutions (TLS), an Oakland-based company, is planning a new terminal for transferring “agriculture and mineral commodities” , most likely where coal will be moved through Oakland, at the port off Burma Road in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND — As political lines are drawn in this city’s coal war, the dust is flying around a key issue: whether escaping coal dust poses a risk to residents and the environment.

For months, city officials have pored over documents supporting and opposing a developer’s plan to ship coal through a new terminal near the Port of Oakland. The City Council is expected to hear their findings soon, but state legislators aren’t waiting around for the city to take action. A handful of bills introduced by state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Oakland, to try to block coal shipments to the Bay Area will get their first airings in Sacramento this week.

Environmentalists and some local officials say transporting the ore through the East Bay to Oakland poses a significant health hazard for West Oakland residents already disproportionately suffering the impacts of emissions from trucks, cars and ships. They say errant coal dust has been found in Richmond yards near a terminal that over the past year has been transporting coal.

But Oakland Army Base developer Phil Tagami and his partners insist there’s no direct threat, at least not the way they plan to cart the coal.

“Opponents paint a picture of this facility that strays very far from science and facts,” said Tagami’s spokesman, Larry Kamer. “We submitted expert testimony to the city in September that coal can be and is being shipped safely.”

The massive, $250 million bulk commodities terminal on the Outer Harbor is part of a global logistics center taking shape at the former base. Many goods could be shipped through the terminal, including coal transported via rail from Utah mines through the Sierras, Sacramento, Davis, Richmond and Oakland on its way to Asia.

In addition to Hancock, labor leaders and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf have sided with environmental groups to oppose the plan. Starting Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing will begin hearings on two of Hancock’s four bills targeting coal shipments in California. The bills cover a variety of issues, from the health and safety risks to West Oakland residents, to prohibiting the use of public funds to build projects for coal transport — such as Tagami’s. The base redevelopment depends on public funding, including $242 million from the California Transportation Commission for rail and access improvements to the site, according to Hancock’s office.

Part of the funding puzzle was solved last month when the state of Utah approved spending $53 million in taxpayer money to help build a coal-shipping facility in Oakland, as mining companies seek new international markets for their product to offset declining domestic demands for the ore. The companies currently export a fraction of what they produce through ports in Long Beach, Stockton and Richmond, but that will change once Oakland’s terminal is finished.

Activists say it could draw train loads of between 5 million and 10 million metric tons of coal from Utah. If so, that would make Oakland the biggest exporter of coal on the West Coast. But Kamer has downplayed any such commitment, saying the market will determine what is and isn’t shipped there.

If coal is transported through the terminal, he said, the project could lean on a 2015 study by the federal Surface Transportation Board, which analyzed the effects of coal dust for the construction of a new rail line in southeastern Montana, the Tongue River Railroad.

The study “concluded that coal dust from trains on the proposed rail line would not harm human health or the environment.”

But Jessica Yarnall Loarie, a Sierra Club attorney, said the Tongue River Railroad is a defunct project and the study underestimated the amount of coal coming off trains.

“And she pointed to a different study of the Columbia River Gorge in Washington which found that uncovered coal trains emit twice as much particulates as freight trains, with coal dust accounting for half of the emissions.

The Sierra Club, too, submitted its own report by an engineer concluding that coal dust is difficult to control and there is nothing in writing requiring that the shipments be covered. Kamer said they plan to do so, along with fully enclosing any facility where coal is trucked to or stored.

In Richmond, residents living along the rail line in Parchester Village and Atchison Village have complained about coal dust landing on homes and cars.

Sylvia Hopkins, a resident of Atchison Village, said she has found coal dust on her backyard furniture. She brought samples of the dust to a Bay Area Air Quality Management District a few months ago.

“It’s very saddening to me,” the 72-year-old said this week. “It’s bad for humans, the plants, all the animals and the children.”

Andres Soto, a Richmond organizer for Communities for a Better Environment, said he he’s seen long trains of uncovered coal cars sitting in the middle of town. Richmond leaders have passed laws prohibiting coal exports on city-owned facilities but their hands are tied when it comes to private terminals, such as Levin-Richmond. “We have no jurisdiction of the rail operations at all, it’s all federal pre-emption,” said Richmond Mayor Tom Butt. “Regardless of what we think about this, there’s nothing we can do about it. ”

Whether Oakland or the state can do anything about it is still an open question. A lawyer for Tagami has said the city of Oakland does not have the authority to ban any commodity coming or going from the new terminal. But Yarnall Loarie sees it a different way.

“The city of Oakland can do what it wants to do with its property,” she said. “The simple fact is if Oakland doesn’t build a coal terminal there’s no reason for coal trains to come to Oakland.”

David DeBolt is a reporter for the Bay Area News Group who covers Oakland. DeBolt grew up in the Bay Area and has worked for daily newspapers in Palo Alto, Fairfield and Walnut Creek. He joined the organization in 2012.

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